


What the Heart Wants

by red_river



Series: The Other Guardian [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mystery, Other Guardian verse, Pre-Slash, Romance, mild AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-16
Packaged: 2017-12-26 02:23:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_river/pseuds/red_river
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's pissed. Sam's pulling back. Castiel is caught between them. After Sam learns the truth about Dean's time in Hell, the Winchesters split over a case in LA, and everything falls apart at once, leaving Sam in peril on the edge of the sea. Dean isn't the only one who needs an angel sometimes. Sam/Cas centric, pre-slash; mild AU. Part of the Other Guardian 'verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. In brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.
> 
> This story follows "Blood and Broken Glass," but it's not totally necessary to read that story first.
> 
> Special Note: One challenge of adding a "gap year" between Dean being raised from Hell and most of the events of Season 4 was getting in a few important canon events in a new way. This story surrounds/follows Sam finding out about Dean torturing souls in Hell; as a consequence, Sam and Dean are on the rocks again. In this version of events, Uriel features more strongly. This story is somewhat dark, though with a higher upstroke than "Blood and Broken Glass." Please enjoy.

**Prologue**

Uriel landed silently in the small motel room, his entire essence contracting away from the claustrophobia of a human building, the crawl of his vessel's human skin, and everywhere the smell of them, the putrid reek of slow decay from creatures dying molecule by molecule. The room was pitch black except for a hazy glow filtering through coarse curtains, a strange shifting pattern of red and then yellow that fell across the low bed positioned under the square window.

The angel felt his grace curling in on itself as he surveyed the room of the one protected by the will of Heaven. Crushed beer cans and empty bottles littered the floor; yellow wrappers still wet with saliva and the grease of red meat lined the table, and clothing stained with sweat and dirt was heaped over both chairs. Uriel's lips twisted with disgust.

He moved slowly across the space, picking his way carefully through the refuse. He paused at the foot of the first bed, focusing effortlessly on the figure through the dark. Dean Winchester reeked of alcohol and blood. Oh, he had bathed with some combination of human chemicals, immersed himself in clear water, gotten everything off his skin—but his soul was another story.

Uriel let his human fingers contort until his hands tightened into fists. Heaven's chosen was bathed in the blood of souls, and that was not something so easily scrubbed away or forgotten. Uriel had been present when Castiel had raised him, had watched as bits of ash and rotted meat were sealed around the soul to restore it to human form, just another incarnation of decaying flesh. It sickened him, to see such filth retrieved from the pit where it belonged.

But the will of Heaven was absolute. Dean Winchester was saved, forgiven all his sins, declared clean, and under the protection of Castiel. He could see the lingering marks of the other angel's presence—the persistent feel of that powerful grace that gave Castiel the right to give orders, as well as receive them.

It was not the will of Heaven that he touch Dean Winchester. He wouldn't even wake him. Uriel let his wings stretch out a little, the power crackling through them making the curtains swing and static buzz on the television set. He didn't touch the sleeping figure, only let the shadow of his grace pass over the slack face, just enough to disturb the nightmares that Castiel had locked away. The human's features contorted as though in pain, his eyes darting suddenly and desperately beneath his lids. Uriel could almost hear the silent scream.

Dean Winchester would not wake now.

With measured steps, the angel continued to the other bed. The curtains were still swaying back and forth, throwing the changing colors of light across the second human's face. Sam Winchester was curled onto his side, one hand gripped tightly into the folds of the white sheet that covered his form. But he was as though bare before the angel. Uriel could see every scratch, every bruise, every scar, and especially every place that Castiel had touched this abomination. The angelic grace clung to him, so much stronger than a human smell or sense, reacting slightly to Uriel's presence almost as though it were trying to protect the demon half-breed.

Uriel's displeasure was a physical sensation in the stomach of his vessel, a churning of disgust and bile, nauseatingly visceral. The sickness of humanity all around him, and worse…he looked at the sleeping boy.

Sam Winchester was not protected by the will of Heaven. The boy had been there once—even Uriel remembered the stir that went through the ranks of angels when the thing had died and wound up at the gates, so to speak, a soul with shackles of demonic taint, so human and yet not.

Heaven had taken him then, but Hell would take him now.

Castiel's grace was a beautiful thing, a very pure thing, much like Castiel himself—one of the untouchable angels, so far above the rest of them, who in the eternal war had always faced the armies of Hell in his true form, who had never before worn a vessel because he had never been thrown down to toil among the human filth as Uriel had. He had seen that grace in battle, raised against the soldiers of the dark, and he had no choice but to respect it. And yet here was that same grace, wasted on a monster, slowly being consumed by one more sliver of human filth sucking that pure light down into its own twisted core.

Castiel was right that it did _look_ human, that the demon taint was so deep it didn't roil off of Sam Winchester like the flames of hellfire. It didn't matter. Just the knowledge of what it was made Uriel's grace recoil.

He stepped up to the edge of the bed, until he was looking directly down at the younger Winchester. His wings were rippling at his back, consumed with the desire to smite, to erase, to make clean, but he forced them closed, letting a small smile settle onto the face of his host.

The hypocrisy of human expression was the one thing Uriel had found useful: the cruel smile, the soft harshness of truth, the sharp edge of false sincerity. He didn't dare defy Castiel and touch the Winchesters, but there were other ways. Duality was unnatural to angels, creatures created of single-minded celestial intent—but then, he had been sentenced to work among humans for a very long time.

It was time Dean Winchester got off his high horse, and Sam Winchester remembered his place before the angels.

Uriel bent down until he was sitting on the edge of the human's bed, and reached out the hand of his vessel; he wouldn't touch Sam Winchester with even the shadow of his grace. His heavy hand on his shoulder was enough to make the boy's eyes blink open in surprise. Uriel leaned forward slightly, towering over him, and appreciating the fear that immediately took hold of his features, the distant light turning his pupils a glassy red. He didn't even try to sit up.

"Uriel," he whispered—the stench of human breath wrapping around an angel's name.

"Sam," Uriel greeted, his lips turning up in a disgusted smile. "I think we should talk."


	2. Chapter 1

Castiel rested on the weatherbeaten slats of a wooden bench, tracking the endless passage of people across the sunlit quadrangle of Stanford University. The angel leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands as he observed them each in turn—a young man with silver glasses perched on his permanently crooked nose, an older one with both hands clenched into his thin suit pockets, a girl bearing a red backpack. In the eternities before his assignment to the Winchesters, Castiel had occasionally cast his attention down on the multitudes of the Lord's most beloved creations, largely without interest. From Heaven, they had appeared interchangeable. It wasn't until he had begun spending time in the Winchesters' company that he started to notice the distinctions, the infinite variations on a single theme, how even the universal expressions morphed to match the contours of each specific face.

It still felt strange to Castiel—to descend to Earth but not seek out the Winchesters—and yet he had felt himself drawn to the physical sphere more and more often, whenever he was not required to be in Heaven. Dean did not always seem to appreciate his presence, so Castiel had taken to spending his moments of contemplation in places much like this: open, green spaces filled with the flurry of indefinite human action, the twisted branches of a cork tree swaying over his head.

He wasn't certain of his purpose in landing here in particular, watching the students passing by laden with stacks of books, conversing with each other, some lying prone upon the long grass. Perhaps it was an idle sense of curiosity—because this was a place Sam had been, a place he had spoken of fondly. Castiel had little interest in visiting many of the places Dean had described, chiefly bars and other establishments dedicated to the pursuit of sin. But it was different with Sam. He was not certain why.

With a sudden forewarning, Castiel straightened and tipped his head back, sensing the firmament opening above him. He felt the other angel's grace long before the figure landed beside him, the slats of the bench creaking under his weight.

"Castiel." Uriel cracked his neck once to each side, as though adjusting to the shape of his vessel. "What a surprise. I hadn't expected to find you down here. Though perhaps I should have."

Castiel glanced at his subordinate, considering the lines of amusement playing at his lips. "Uriel," he greeted cautiously. In the millennia they had fought side by side, Castiel had never had a problem with his subordinate before—but Uriel had been overly concerned with the Winchesters since the beginning, and Castiel found his presence perturbing. Uriel was an angel, and thus should have been above suspicion, or doubt; all the same, Castiel found himself scrutinizing his dark face, searching for the source of his consternation. Uriel did not seem to notice.

"You've changed, Castiel," the angel said, leaning forward slowly until his elbows pressed into his thighs. "I remember a time when you rarely deigned to leave Heaven. Now it seems every time you have a day off you're down here, in the mud." Uriel turned his head to meet Castiel's gaze, a glint of amusement or something less straightforward, perhaps condescension, hovering in his eyes. "Will you tell me what about man you suddenly find so fascinating? Or should I guess?" Uriel's eyes strayed out across the quadrangle, settling on a boy with shoulder-length brown hair. Castiel frowned.

"They are complex. There is much I do not understand."

Uriel shrugged under his sleek black suit. "Why waste the time? Most of what they are is a simple cataclysm of hormones—anger, gluttony, pride, lust…" The angel cracked a small smile. "Always very adept at their mortal sins."

A memory slipped unbidden into Castiel's mind: reverence in hazel eyes, a soft hand pressed to the slope of his knee. He clasped his fingers in his lap. "They are not all like that," he said.

Uriel chuckled low in his throat, and Castiel turned his head, watching the vibrations of the sound rolling up his trachea. "You're going soft, Castiel," the other angel admonished. "Too much time caged in flesh and blood will do that to you. Don't make the mistake of thinking I'm the only one who's noticed." Abruptly, his laughter stopped, and he pivoted to face Castiel, their eyes suddenly locked together. "You have been spending a great deal of time with the Winchesters," Uriel said, his words barely a murmur. "It has been noted."

Castiel felt his forehead furrow. A reprimand would never have come from a subordinate, which meant Uriel was not here at Heaven's bidding; he was fulfilling some agenda of his own. For a long moment Castiel watched him without speaking, trying to parse the expression on Uriel's face. When at last he spoke, his voice was low.

"I am not the only one."

Uriel's brows drew together. "What?"

Castiel pulled himself straight against the back of the bench. "I know you have called upon the Winchesters of your own accord. Why?" The word came out sharper than he had intended, and his blue eyes fixed on Uriel's, daring the other angel's answer. Uriel lifted one hand and then let it flutter back down.

"Just conveying a few facts I thought they might find interesting." He paused, his expression consumed for just a moment by an all-too-human smugness. "I too can play messenger of God, Castiel."

"Is that what you think I'm doing?" Castiel asked. "Playing?" The branches of the cork tree trembled over their heads, upset by the hint of his true voice bleeding through, irritation weakening his control. Uriel raised an eyebrow as a few leaves shuddered down around them.

"I think you've gotten awfully caught up in the affairs of two substantially lesser beings," the other angel answered, nonchalant. "Especially the one who is damned."

"No man is damned until the moment of his death," Castiel replied, the words breaking from him too fast, too stern. There was something heavy in his chest, a flame burning that he did not understand. He took a moment to collect himself before continuing. "This is a task from Heaven. The Winchesters have been assigned to me."

"Even so, has it occurred to you that you might be taking too personal an interest?" Uriel pressed, his chin sinking into the center of one dark palm. "Devoting too much time?"

Castiel gave him a sharp look. "We are guardians, Uriel."

"We are angels," Uriel shot back. "They are not one and the same."

For a long moment, they were silent, regarding each other with considering eyes. Castiel turned the words over in his mind. He had never struggled with the distinction before, but somehow it didn't feel like enough anymore, to be an observer instead of a sentinel. He was not certain he could explain that to his brother angel—was more certain that he had no interest in trying. With a shift of tan fabric, Castiel got to his feet, staring down at Uriel from the new advantage of his height.

"We all have our divine commissions," he said, his gaze boring into the dark angel's. "Perhaps it would be better if you focused on yours."

"Oh?" was all Uriel said, though a shadow crossed his face that Castiel thought might be rage.

"The Winchesters are my responsibility. Until you are given other directives by Heaven, I will ask you to stay away from them." Another memory was in his mind now, already a month old: Dean's blood-streaked face, his mouth a seething pit as he yelled about Uriel descending, explaining what Sam had done during the time he was in Hell. Castiel felt his eyes narrow. "They have not benefited from your interference," he said, and Uriel's eyes widened, hearing the reprimand for what it was.

For a moment the other angel's face was clouded; Castiel watched the interplay of emotions across his features, the curl of his lips lifting in a sneer, the frown inherent in a furrowed forehead. The bitterness of self-righteousness. At last Uriel seemed to calm himself, though Castiel was not blind to the tension in his muscles as he raised his hands.

"If you think that's best," he said. Then he rose, too, and stood at Castiel's side, straightening to his vessel's full height. "Well, I should be going. No doubt it's almost time for you to be flying back to the Winchesters. And there is always so much to do at the garrison. Especially in your absence."

Castiel felt a strange sharpness inside of him at the words, a twinge at the realization of how little time he had spent at his post in the last months. Uriel took a step away and then turned to face him again, his wings hesitating half-open at his back.

"One piece of advice, Castiel. If you're going to cling to your _assignment_ , try to remember who it is Heaven sent you to. There is only one Winchester that matters." With that he was gone, leaving Castiel staring out across the bright campus with a suddenly unquiet mind.

.x.

Today had been shit.

Driving through L.A. traffic was shit. Lunch, at Sam's choice of a frippy little café that thought a few scraps of cheese and vegetables on hard bread made a meal, had been shit. The squeaky front axle on his baby, which needed a tune-up and had been making sure he knew it for a hundred miles? Full-on bull crap. Luckily, the whole thing was about to turn around.

The hotel Dean had booked them into was nothing short of swanky. The beds were big enough that even Sam would probably be able to sleep without his toes sticking out the end like Gulliver on the island of the tiny paranoid people, and the wide TV on a polished stand got forty-two channels of cable, instead of the usual two news, six sports, and one playing very bad movies that only rarely featured topless girls. Dean hadn't spent too long looking for topless girls on TV, though, because with the way their hotel was rubbing right up against the beach, he had just as good a shot of catching some bare flesh just by looking out the window. All of which would be putting him in the perfect mood to kick back, if it weren't for the giant buzzkill standing in front of him with his hands on his hips.

"Aw man, Sam, you are seriously cramping my style." Dean looked his brother up and down, giving a dramatic shake of his head. When Sam said he was going to change, Dean expected his admittedly pasty brother to come out of the bathroom in a pair of swim trunks—not a lifeguard uniform with red shorts that stopped well above the knees and a too-tight white t-shirt. A pair of sunglasses rested in his girly hair, which was pulled back into a tiny, scruffy rattail at the nape of his neck. Dean reached out one disbelieving finger and prodded the red foam buoy slung across his brother's chest. "Y'know, _Baywatch_ ended like a decade ago, and nobody wanted to go out with any of those guys. So the costume…"

Sam's expression pinched into his all-too-familiar bitchface. "By _costume_ , I assume you mean the _uniform_ , which you are also supposed to be wearing? To blend in, remember?"

"Blend in?" Dean snorted. "I don't know exactly what that means to you, Sammy but I have a different idea about how to blend in at a beach in L.A.—City of Angels in bikinis." He waggled his eyebrows as he said the last, somehow not at all shocked when the only response he got to the invitation was a long-suffering sigh.

"Dean, I told you I found a case." The afternoon light came through the large window of their hotel room, glistening off the TV and Sam fiddled with the sunglasses on his head for a moment. Dean shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his eyes rolling skyward.

"Oh, right, right…the case where nobody's died in months, except for fish. The newly turned fishitarian sea monster."

"That's the one," Sam replied, his voice annoyingly even. "So go put on your uniform—we need to ask around at the beach." He gestured over his shoulder to the paper bag on Dean's bed, which, if it contained the same eyesore Sam was wearing, Dean would be salting and burning right there on the puffy coverlet, repair costs be damned. Dean clicked his tongue.

"Yeah, not gonna happen, Sammy. _Beach in L.A_. I'm not gonna strut around in short-shorts with a piece of foam strapped to my chest. You look ridiculous, man. And besides, look at this place," Dean waved his hands around, encompassing the whole of the room, from the floating gauze curtains to the little mints on the mounds and mounds of pillows on the beds—or rather, the place the mints had been, before Dean went to town on those bad boys. The older hunter picked a fleck of chocolate out of his teeth. "This is an upscale beachside hotel. Dude, I can see girls in bikinis from our back window—and I don't mean like soccer moms, or teenagers. Hot women outside, right now." Dean snapped his fingers twice in his brother's face. "You getting me, Sammy?"

"Oh I get it," Sam said, crossing his arms like the bitchy soccer moms Dean was glad to be free of. "And believe me, when Bobby comes to kick your ass for this, I am just gonna stand to the side and watch."

"Oh c'mon!" Dean protested. "You can't go to L.A. and not stay by the beach, and none of these upscale places were gonna take our usual brand of card. We needed Mr. Remington."

"Mr. Remington can stay here because that's one of Bobby's established aliases," Sam told him, with that squirrelly look he always got before he sold Dean out to authority figures. "Somebody's going to end up paying for this room."

"Yeah, well," Dean shrugged nonchalantly, "not today, Sammy. So ditch your ridiculous costume, forget your non-case, and get your ass on vacation already." The words came out a little sharper than he meant them to, and Sam drew back a little, his shoulders hunching, the way they'd been doing far too often over the last two weeks, reminding Dean in half a second of all the reasons he hadn't wanted a case in the first place. But Sam had never known when to back off, and without even looking at Dean he was making his way over to the small oak desk where his laptop sat open, reflecting in the polished wood.

"It's not a vacation, Dean. The research on this is solid." He opened the small desk drawer, pulling out a manila folder and letting it fall open as he held it out toward his brother. "Look—bodies of the people from a couple months ago." He flipped through coroner's pictures, half decomposed and bloated corpses on metal slabs, with close-ups of the hands. "All drowned, all with their fingertips chewed off—not their hands, not their toes, just their fingertips. Officially, they were eaten by fish and other marine life, but it's too neat."

Dean barely glanced at the pictures. His gaze was fixed on Sam, daring his brother to look up and meet his eyes, to give in for once. "Real lovely," he muttered.

"And now," Sam continued, in his all-out lecturing tone, "we have sea lions washing up." These pictures were more grotesque, not crime scene photos but shots pulled from the Internet, with close-ups of the damage. "Missing the tips of their fins. Don't you see a pattern here?"

"Oh, I am trying not to," Dean said, reaching forward and closing the file with one finger. "Look, Sam, you know what I do see? No one has died here in months. Some other hunter probably already came through and took care of this ghost or sea monster or ghostly sea monster and now you're just seeing patterns in natural shit. Fish eat each other all the time."

"Okay, well first of all sea lions are mammals, not fish," Sam started, like the fucking smartass he just could not resist being sometimes. Dean felt his fingers clench involuntarily, and he wondered if Sam noticed, because he licked his lips almost nervously before pressing on. "And you can't really think this is a coincidence." Sam began paging through the file again, but Dean grabbed it out of his hands, closing it without looking.

"It is a coincidence, Sam," Dean said, tossing the file onto the desk and deliberately looking away as a few pages slipped loose to fan out across the wood. "And I'm not going to waste my time looking at dead fish. Listen." Dean stepped forward, raising his eyebrows and pushing the heel of his hand against Sam's buoy. "I know it just breaks your heart when Nemo gets eaten. So you _could_ rent Flipper, and Free Willy one through eight, and Ocean's 11, and all those fish-flicks, and stick around here—or, you could actually listen to me, and actually have a good time for once in your life. So come on—you hitting the beach with me or what?"

Dean had long ago learned how to push his brother's buttons. For twenty-odd years of their lives, a jab like that would get Sam moving the way he wanted him to, especially if it came out a little angry, a little desperate, a little too close to the nerve. But today, instead of moving his ass, all Dean got from his brother was a pleading look, the one he'd gotten so sick of over the last fourteen days. "Dean, there is a case here, I know it," Sam started again, and as if just to piss him off he reached out and scooped up the folder again, tucking the pages back inside. "Look, man, can't we just—"

"No!" Dean cut him off, resisting the urge to slap that folder right out of his brother's hands. "I'm sick of hearing about this. Here's the deal, okay? You work on your nonexistent case, and I'll go _not_ work on your nonexistent case, and in the end when nothing comes of it I'll have picked up some hot chick and you can take home all the starfish and sand dollars you can question."

Nothing pissed Dean off quite as much as the image of his brother's face shutting down, Sam turning his back with a shrug. "Fine, I will, Dean." He rifled through the pages in the folder, but Dean knew he was faking because Sam had been obsessing over those stupid fish pictures for a week, and there was no way he didn't have the whole file memorized. So Dean knew, just knew, that this was Sam avoiding him, his new SOP of non-conflict and the silent treatment, like they were five again. Dean snatched his wallet from the nightstand and shoved it down into his pocket.

"Last chance, Sam," he bit out, acknowledging to himself that even he wouldn't have come along if someone invited him in that tone. He tried to soften his voice before he spoke again. "Even you should be able to score with these odds."

"Yeah, well, I've a got a case," Sam said, easing himself down at the desk with that ludicrous foam buoy popping up off his chest. He didn't turn around. Dean clenched his fingers around the door handle.

"Well, you know what? Good!" he said, yanking his leather jacket off the hook and thrusting the door open. "'Cause I need a night off!" Sam didn't say anything and Dean didn't look back as he slammed the door behind him.

The wind hit his face as soon as he stepped outside, heavy with the voices of vacationers and the scent of the sea, and it poured over Dean like a bucket of cold water, deflating him right there on the sidewalk. He scrubbed a hand through his hair as he started the walk down through the parking lot. He hadn't meant for things to go that way—he'd meant for them to have a vacation, him and Sammy both, just to take a break for one fucking night. That's what all this was about: the beach, the swinging bar just up the road, the posh hotel he'd booked all the way through the end of the week, Sam's birthday, because he wanted this to be _good_ , he wanted them to be good for the first time in two weeks. But apparently once that can of worms was open, there was no shoving the little wiener-shits back in.

From the second he'd crawled out of Hell with an angel marker stamped on his bicep, Dean had sworn that everything between him and Sam was going to be exactly the same. It hadn't been. They'd held it together for a few months, half by ignoring everything and half by playacting roles that didn't quite fit them anymore. Things had gone from bad to worse a month ago, when he found out how Sam had been spending his free time while he was down in Hell. But things had gone from worse to total shit-storm one morning two weeks ago when he woke up from a Hell nightmare, the kind he hadn't had in months, to a nightmare of an entirely different kind: Sam sitting on the edge of the bed, gnawing on the knuckle of his thumb, fixing Dean with eyes that were already far too wet. Sam who knew what he'd done in Hell.

Dean kicked the tire of a beat-up Ford and then winced as the impact radiated up through his thin tennis shoes. He thought he understood now why Sam had been so upset to have his secret revealed—he wasn't sure anything packed as much suck as waking up to find that some dickbag angel had spilled the beans you'd been trying so hard to keep bottled up. And it was the same dickbag angel, too. Dean had no idea what Uriel was playing at, getting involved with him and Sam, but when he saw that conniving bastard again he was going to pop him right in that big mouth, no matter how many bones he broke doing it.

Nothing had been right with him and Sam since. He'd tried to be his old self, to be the brave little soldier, but it all seemed so fake now that Sam knew what he was, what he really was, and Dean wasn't sure who he was faking it for. Sam hadn't said anything since that morning, after they talked it out on the hood of the Impala, the warmth of the familiar black metal the only thing that helped Dean keep it together—but he'd been a little jumpier, a little sadder, careful not to push. He'd been the Sam waiting for Dean when he walked out of Hell nearly four months ago. Dean missed _his_ Sam—the Sam who would do research at a corner table just so he could follow Dean to whatever bar he went to, the Sam who would never think of taking on a case alone. But if he was honest with himself, what he missed most was the Sam who would never let him skate on something like this, who would keep pushing and pushing like the stubborn little bitch he was. He couldn't stand the thought of Sam pulling away from him.

Dean glanced back at the hotel room one more time—but even through the window, he could see Sam still bent over his computer, the red strap of the buoy fastened around his neck. Nobody was coming after him this time. Dean gritted his teeth, then turned up his collar and stalked away from the hotel. Typical Sam—he could ruin any good mood, and even the two beach bunnies flouncing by him in bouncing bikinis weren't enough to get it back. He would hit the bar first. Maybe then he'd be ready for the beach.


	3. Chapter 2

Sam dug his toes into the sand, looking out over the waves of the ocean stained a sunset red. The sand was still warm just beneath the surface, different now from the burning fire under his bare soles when he'd started in the afternoon, and while he'd probably exfoliated at least a few calluses from the bottoms of his feet, he was beginning to wonder if Dean was right and this was all a colossal waste of time. So far, walking around in his lifeguard uniform, he had settled three disputes about beach furniture, whistled two surfers out of the swimming zone, stood for three pictures with tourists, and learned absolutely nothing about the case.

He had also ignored three of Dean's calls.

Sam wasn't blind to the irony of sending his brother to voicemail when barely a month ago he'd been desperate for Dean to call, had his ringer turned up all the way so there was no chance of missing any crumbs his brother threw his way. Today he'd heard the phone ring all three times but just fisted his hands in the pockets of his thin red shorts and let it go. Periodically as he ambled down the beach he'd pulled the phone out of his pocket, and the missed call icon glared at him from the screen like an admonition. Dean hadn't left a message, which meant he wasn't in any trouble, or at least he hadn't been an hour ago. He knew that he should call his brother back anyway, apologize maybe, or just ask what bar he was in and go find him. Sam didn't reach for his bag.

Everything was an argument with Dean these days, and everything Sam did just seemed to make it worse. And Dean had always had a penchant for walking away from his problems, but now every time Sam watched his brother shrug on that leather jacket and slam the door, he felt like his brother was walking away from _him_ —not the argument, not the room, him.

Sam stopped where he was, just at the lip of the foam rolling in on the tide, and stared out over the waves, watching a pelican as it folded its wings and plunged into the water. Dean's nightmares were back—but now when he woke in the stale darkness of the earliest hours of the morning to the sound of Dean tossing and turning, kicking out against the sheets, he had a horrible sense that he knew exactly what his brother was dreaming about. Most nights he found it impossible to go back to sleep, the knowledge that it was his fault, that Dean never would have been dragged under in the first place if it wasn't for him, choking him like barbed wire wrapped around his throat. So often he lay there in the darkness and thought about calling Castiel, the angel who had banished his brother's nightmares the first time—but every time he opened his mouth, Uriel's words came back to him, as vivid as if the dark angel were seated once again on the edge of his bed, looking down at him with his lips turned back in a sneer.

 _Do you know what demons look like to an angel, Sam? Maggots and filth—even inside a vessel, all that ugliness is right there on the surface. Anathema._ Uriel's breath had been unexpectedly foul as he leaned in, cracked a smile that showed his glistening white teeth. _You're a special breed. That ugliness is a little deeper inside you, tucked away in the black corners of your mind—but don't be so arrogant as to think you can hide it from angels. I see you for what you are. No amount of second-hand grace—_ and Sam wasn't sure what he'd meant, but suddenly Uriel's hand was on his leg, the same spot Castiel had healed, and Sam jerked back with a gasp from those deathly cold fingers— _no measure of misguided pity can conceal that._ Then Uriel had been on his feet, towering over Sam once more, and as the curtains fluttered up from the window he thought he could see, for one second, the outline of enormous black wings as the angel tipped his head. _Maggots and filth, Sam, and you're going to soil everything you touch. So I'd consider carefully what you're reaching out for._

He had wrestled with himself the next morning—whether to tell Dean what had happened, whether it was selfish to put that burden on his brother, now that he knew exactly how much Dean was already struggling with. In the end, he couldn't even decide what he'd say. That Uriel was mean to him? He'd stopped running to Dean a long time ago. He couldn't bring himself to run to Castiel, either.

The sun had dipped under the horizon now—the beach was starting to empty, families and knots of college students packing their bags and setting off across the sand toward the lights of the city, leaving the lifeguard houses and flagged swimming areas vacant for the night. Sam had pretty much given up finding out anything about the case and was just walking up the beach, taking in the view of the darkening sea and sky. In the distance he could see an outcropping of rocks jutting out from the shore, cutting through the waves and making the surf foamy and white. Unconsciously, he headed toward it.

The beach ahead of him was empty except for one woman in a visor and a white cotton dress headed in his direction. She had two bulging cloth bags over her shoulder and a huge beach umbrella under her arm that dragged behind her in the sand. Sam nodded as they passed each other, and then stopped dead as a piercing scream reverberated across the surf.

"Help! Help!" a second voice shrieked, barely distinguishable over the initial wail.

Sam whipped his head around, searching for the source of the cries. Two children were bobbing on the waves—little girls in matching bathing suits struggling to hold their heads above the water. The mother had heard the cry at the same time, and out of the corner of his eye Sam saw all of the bags and the umbrella hit the sand, but the tall hunter was already racing toward the water. As he got closer, he could see the younger girl was holding onto the older one, who was screaming, her arms thrashing. For a moment Sam thought maybe her foot was caught on some seaweed, or that a strong riptide was pulling at her, but then he realized the smaller girl wasn't being affected at all. Sam threw his bag down in the sand just before he lunged into the surf. Water droplets sprayed up all around him, and he felt the resistance of the tide as he waded out as quickly as he could.

He was still a few feet away when the shadow under the water moved suddenly, snaking away from the girl and into the deeper water, disappearing up the coast. The little girl was still crying, but she wasn't being pulled under anymore. Up close she reminded Sam of what Jo might have looked like when she was younger, with a blond braid and a big flower clipped into the top. The sound of her tears was almost drowned out by the yelling of her mother from the shore, and Sam scooped her up in one arm and her sister in the other, holding them all the way out of the water as he started heading back.

"Are you okay?" he asked. The girl nodded shakily, coughing into his shirt. Sam glanced down to find that her little sister had fisted one hand in the red rope of the foam buoy strapped across his chest. "You guys are gonna be just fine," he promised.

As soon as the waves were just barely skimming over his feet, Sam put the girls down and the pair of them ran to their mother, who fell to her knees in the sand so she could hug and kiss and chastise her children all at the same time. Both girls were crying, more out of fear it seemed than anything else, and they held onto their mother even as she yelled. Sam couldn't help the little smile that tugged at the corner of his lips. There was a time when Dean's yelling had felt like worry, too.

The woman looked up over her daughters' shoulders, and Sam could see she had the same curly blond hair as her children. "Thank you!" she said, practically breathless. "Thank you so much. I know you're probably not even on duty…"

Sam almost started, but caught himself just in time. "Just doing my job, ma'am." He tugged at the foam buoy awkwardly and mustered up his best approximation of a lifeguard smile. "Just make sure in the future they only go swimming between the flags." Sam gave the family a nod and then stood looking after them as they walked away down the beach, the girls' hands gripped tight in their mother's. Then he paced over to his bag, dusting some of the sand off before digging out his phone. He had no more missed calls.

Sam looked back at the ocean, running his tongue over the inside of his cheek as he studied the spot where the girl had been drowning. The shape had seemed wrong for a shark, not to mention he was relatively certain he had seen just a hint of scales on whatever it was as it darted up the coast. His gaze followed the line of the beach until it became the rocky outcropping. The sunset was almost gone, and his hand squeezed around his silent phone, Dean's new number at the forefront of his mind—but on the other hand, he could just imagine his brother's response. _Something with scales...in the water...of the ocean—no way, Sam! Couldn't be a fish, a little tiny girl who got scared of a fish!_

He'd just check it out, Sam decided—confirm it for himself. Make sure that the next time he talked to Dean it wouldn't end in an argument. He would call his brother as soon as he was sure. His mind made up, Sam tucked the phone into the pocket on the side of his foam buoy and headed up the shoreline.

.x.

Dean finished off his beer, half tipping the bottle and peering down through the empty glass. It turned the stained counter of the bar into a nice mahogany, far better than the blue hues of the trendy establishment Dean currently sat in—he would kick this happy hippy crap straight into the can if he knew where to find a real bar in this town, one with a sticky floor and dings as deep as quarters in the walls. The jury was still out on whether the extremely low tube tops on the waitresses that were about one inch shy of a wardrobe malfunction made up for it.

It wasn't all bad, to be fair—Dean was pleasantly buzzed, and he'd spent the better part of the last hour playing tonsil hockey with a beautiful Latina babe in a sarong, who had just the right amount of sass in her lips and swing in her hips. This was her hangout, and they were meeting later at her hotel. Dean patted the paper in his pocket. Tina her name was, or Gina, or whatever really. She was his favorite kind of chick—on vacation, looking for some no-strings-attached memories.

 _Vacation._ The word knocked the buzz right out of his brain, and Dean stared down at his empty bottle, considering flagging down the blue-clad girl with the nose ring who was bartending. The alcohol had managed to put the memory of his pain-in-the-bitch little brother out of his head for a while, but he was back now, rattling around in Dean's skull the way he always did when they were separated. So far Sam's birthday week was starting exactly the way it usually did: with Dean drinking alone in a bar and wondering what class of pliers it would take to wrench the stick out of Sam's ass. He licked his lips, tasting the faint afterflavor of cherry chapstick. Maybe he just needed to get Sam laid. Too bad Nina Cantina or whatever her name was didn't have a sister.

He had some time to kill before his date, though, and Dean would be damned if he booked them a swanky room and got on Bobby's eternal shit list just to give up on the first day—it wasn't too late to turn this vacation around.

Nothing said _I'm sorry_ like a big hunk of red meat.

.x.

Twenty minutes later, Dean entered the hotel room juggling two paper bags. "Sam!" he hollered, tossing the plastic key onto the table amidst a pile of brochures for things like dinner cruises and parasailing—honestly, what ever happened to decent entertainment like _Girls Gone Wild_? He set the paper bags down, unrolling the tops and pulling out wrapped burgers and little boats bursting with crispy golden fries. There was even a plastic lidded bowl with a salad in it for his wayward bunkmate. It was from a diner, not a McDonald's, and Sam had better appreciate the years of his life he'd wasted listening to the middle-aged hostess yap while making a special exception and letting him order to go.

"Yo, Shamu! Defender of the ocean!" Dean called again, louder. "I brought grub."

Without the sun streaming through the window, the room was dingier than he remembered, all red glow and shadows, and the only florescent light came from the thin stripe beneath the bathroom door. It was getting dark out; there wouldn't be anyone to question on the beach anymore.

"Hey, Sam!" Dean called, flicking on the lights and directing his voice toward the closed bathroom. "Your awesome big brother has brought you dinner." There was no answer, and Dean felt that same anger rising in his chest again. If Sam was giving him the silent treatment, he was going to kick him out and let him bunk on the beach with those sea lions he was loving on so hard. He stalked over, rapping one knuckle against the wood. "Man, are you still sore about all that fish crap?" He kicked the door experimentally with his foot, surprised when it swung open.

The space was empty, the toilet seat down. Somebody had just left the light on.

"Shit," Dean hissed. He jammed his fingers over the switch, turning the light off, and then headed back to the table and threw himself down in a chair. This was just like Sam these days—little bitch was probably out somewhere, ignoring his calls to punish him for their argument and pissing all over Dean's attempts to put things right. He hadn't even left a note. Well, the yeti in the lifeguard costume could sulk for as long as he liked. Dean pulled one of the burgers toward himself, flipping through channels as he ripped the foil off.

He had just settled on some movie with a modestly hot chick and a car chase when his phone started ringing. Dean wiped a greasy hand over a paper napkin before digging his phone out of his pocket. _Sammy_.

Dean frowned at his phone. _After all the times you sent me to voicemail? Don't think so, Sammy!_ The hunter took a huge bite of his burger, hitting the ignore button and kicking his feet up on the second chair—but for all that he wanted not to care, he could feel the muscles in his shoulders twisting up, ready to dial his voicemail if Sam left a message. There wasn't one, and the phone didn't ring again. After an initial feeling Dean refused to acknowledge, he was sucked back in by a loud explosion on the television.

He had just gotten back into the movie when he heard the distinct rustle of wings that meant his angel babysitter was about to descend and kick the crap out of whatever fun he'd been having. Dean took a massive bite of his burger. "Cas," he said, flicking off the television—because he'd long learned that television couldn't compete with an angel who wanted something.

At least if it came to it, he had a big mouthful of greasy cheese to spit at his least-favorite stalker. The thought almost made him smile.


	4. Chapter 3

Sam dug his toes into the slick surface of a huge rock, panting for breath as the waves crashed over his feet. The shoreline was just visible far away across the dark water, obscured by the shadows and not at an optimistic distance for a lone swimmer at twilight. "Shit." He let the phone in his hand sag as he was sent directly to his brother's voicemail.

 _You_ _have reached a mailbox that you should not have the number for. But if you are a hot chick and I gave you this number while drunk, please call 663-0267 and I'll hook up with you later…_

"Damn it, Dean," Sam swore under his breath. He was in real trouble, the kind that made him wonder sometimes if he was really cut out to be a hunter, or if he should just go ahead and let Dean reclassify him _monster chum_ , as he had the first year Sam joined him and their father on hunts. If he was honest with himself, this whole debacle was his own damn fault from start to finish.

It had been dark enough by the time Sam reached the rocky area of the shore that he had pulled out his Maglite, shining it around the dusky tide pools looking for something concrete to bring to Dean, when suddenly he had heard a cry for help. He shot up immediately, spotting a girl flailing out in waves. Looking back, he wondered if he could have been any more stupid or gullible; if Dean didn't kick his ass for this, he'd kick his own ass. It was the same girl that had been drowning before, _exactly_ , and if he'd stopped to think about it he would have realized there was no way she could have gotten away from her mother and ended up that far out in the bay. But no—Sam reacted without thinking, ditching his bag and sloshing into the water like the dumb moose Dean sometimes accused him of being.

The girl disappeared as soon as he was within ten feet of her, and at the same second he felt something cold wrap around his ankle. He struck out with a curse. He'd managed to kick the thing away and swim far enough to scrabble up on a nearby rock, skinning his hands and shins in the process. The one blessing was that he still had his phone, tucked into the pocket of the buoy, and somehow it had stayed dry enough to complain about low battery in the time it took him to frantically dial Dean's number. Thanks to his brilliance in ditching his bag, he was out here with nothing but the pocketknife he'd shoved into the tiny pocket of the swimsuit, and it was about five inches long if the blade was open and he was being really generous. His phone had seemed like it might save him, but apparently Dean was ignoring his calls. There was a great cosmic irony in there somewhere—or maybe just a great cosmic tragedy. He was going to find out really soon if Dean didn't answer this time.

"Come on, Dean, pick up," Sam begged, starting to redial. They had both picked up new phones after his last brush with death, and he didn't have his brother's number on speed dial yet. He was lucky he had it memorized at all. "Pick up!" he pleaded, fingers flying across the last few digits.

There was a splash in the water behind him, followed by a screech that reverberated in Sam's skull, making his head feel like it was going to explode. He longed to drop to his knees and slap his hands over his ears. After a moment he realized that he was screaming, too.

He tried to shake the dizziness and disorientation, forcing his eyes to focus on Dean's number. His thumb was over the send button when a scaled hand suddenly shot out of the water, grabbing his ankle. He lost his balance on the wet rock and went down hard, his teeth rattling in his skull as he was yanked forward. The phone slipped from his hands, snapping against the rock and executing a perfect triple lutz before it dove into the water and sank like a stone. The pit dropped out of Sam's stomach. He just had time to register that his one chance for survival was gone before his body was tumbling after it, hitting the frigid water with a splash.

He could hardly see anything in the murky depths, but whatever it was still had a death grip on his leg. He kicked out as hard as he could, reaching down to grapple with the creature, and found himself face to face with cat-slit yellow eyes, glowing like lamps in the dark water. Suddenly Sam knew with exactly what he was up against. He scrambled for the knife in his pocket, numb fingers raking against the smooth edges as he tried to get the blade out.

" _You won't meet any of those."_

_Eleven-year-old Sam craned his head up to meet the gentle eyes of Bobby Singer as the older hunter paused beside his overstuffed coffee table, one hand on his hip and the other holding a chipped plate with a grilled cheese sandwich. The majority of Bobby's book collection was strewn all over the room, as Sam had pulled one volume and then another up onto the coffee table where he knelt, idly flipping through the pictures. He'd found his dad was more willing to leave him at Bobby's if he said he was studying the supernatural, and since Dean had started hunting with John in earnest, Sam felt more and more at home in the busted-up living room of Bobby's ramshackle scrap yard farmhouse. He studied the older man a moment longer and then looked back at the book, hunching down a little into Dean's old sweatshirt._

" _Why not these?" he asked, scooting the book to the left so they could both look at it. An empty glass wobbled precariously at the edge of the table as everything on the surface shifted, but before Sam could even grab for it Bobby had caught the glass by its rim and set it carefully aside, taking a seat on the couch at Sam's back._

" _Well, these are old creatures, Sam," Bobby explained patiently, holding the boy's place with a finger while he flipped back to reveal the cover, a stylized picture of a dragon under a title in calligraphy so thick it was barely legible: The Lore of Monsters. "Nobody's seen any of these since the Middle Ages. They've gone underground—if they're even around anymore."_

_Bobby leaned over the book, sliding forward to set the sandwich plate down on the table, and Sam leaned comfortably against the older hunter's leg, breathing in the familiar scent of dust and twisted metal baked in the hot sun. His stomach growled under the hand-me-down Harley-Davidson sweatshirt, and Sam ducked his head, willing his body to shut up. Bobby just smiled. He opened the book back to the page Sam had been on, nudging the sandwich plate toward him. In the same stylized artwork as the dragon, this page held the picture of a beautiful woman clad only in seaweed. She appeared to be singing. Siren, it read at the top._

" _So that's what Sirens look like?" Sam asked, giving in at last and plucking one gooey half of the grilled cheese from the plate._

_Bobby chuckled a little. "Don't be fooled, boy." The older hunter leaned over, pointing to a handwritten passage at the bottom of the page; Sam could barely read the cursive, but he reached out one non-greasy finger to trace the flowing lines. "If you were to meet a Siren, it might not look a thing like that. Sirens don't always take the form of seductresses," Bobby cautioned. "They take the form of whatever will get you in the water."_

Like a drowning little girl. Sam lurched up through the surface of the water and tried to gasp in a lungful of air. Some saltwater slipped into his mouth as well, and he coughed before he was plunged beneath the surface again, the incredibly strong Siren pulling him under.

Miraculously, the knife was still in his hand. Sam gave up trying to find the ridge and just dug his fingernail into the loose end until he felt the tip of the blade in his flesh. He forced the metal under his nail, pain sharpening his vision, and levered the blade up. He had maybe one shot at getting out of this alive, and with a five-inch knife it was going to be close.

.x.

Castiel sat awkwardly on the very edge of the wooden chair, a square piece of foil laid out before him with a cheeseburger in the center. The object was as thick as his fist, and the edge of the bun was stained with unsettling clumps of yellow and red. Even so, the angel had a sense that the conglomeration of animal fats and unnaturally colored condiments wasn't wholly responsible for the uneasy feeling in his stomach.

The conversation with Uriel had left him unsettled. Castiel had warred with his doubts for several hours as the shadows grew longer across the campus, the human figures passing before him all but insubstantial in the waning light. Then he had given in and unfurled his wings. He sensed Dean first, at the intersection of city and sand and sea, and when he reentered the physical plane he found himself in the latest of an endless series of revolving hotel rooms. This one had seemed different, without the usual backwash of smells and layer of intransigent grime, but he found Dean in virtually the same position as when he'd last seen him a week ago: mouth bursting with red meat as he mumbled "Cas!" through his food.

"You again," Dean groused, picking a long fragment of onion out of his teeth and spitting it onto his foil wrapper. "If it's not bathroom time, it's burger time, huh? We really need to synchronize our watches, pal."

Castiel barely heard him. There was an absence to the room that he felt at once—a silence and empty space where there should not have been. He swung his head around to study the room, taking in the two beds, still smooth and undisturbed; the computer carefully closed on the desk, the darkness beneath the bathroom door. He turned to Dean with a frown. "Where is Sam?" he asked.

Apparently it had been the wrong thing to say. Dean's features immediately contorted into a scowl, the hand holding the half-eaten burger falling away from his mouth as every muscle tensed, tightened, preparing for a confrontation. "He's not here," Dean spat out.

Castiel took a step toward the table, his footfalls heavy with anxiety he could not define. "Where is he?" he asked again. Dean's eyebrows knit together, and he gave the angel a look, one that Castiel supposed was intended to intimidate him into silence. He held the hunter's gaze without wavering. At last Dean looked away.

"He's off sulking, okay?" Dean grumbled, and though his voice lifted at the end as if in question, Castiel could tell that it was not. "He's out being a bitch over an argument we had—probably at a bar right now, or hooked up and whining to some chick."

That did not sound like Sam as Castiel had come to know him. Castiel stared into the fierce eyes of Heaven's righteous man, reading in them the things he saw so often there: bitterness, defensiveness, unbending ego. He tried to ignore Uriel's voice in his head whispering _anger, pride_. It was difficult to rectify this Dean with the one who had howled for him hardly a month before, begged him to bring back the brother he believed had deserted him, but Castiel had learned that, above all else, humans were relentlessly fickle. He did his best not to wonder if this was the Dean who had left Sam alone in the first place, last time, before the wash of blood.

All at once Castiel was off balance, uncertain what to do with himself. He had not come to speak to Sam specifically—or at least, he had not thought he had. There was an apprehensive part of him that longed to go out and find Sam at once, but he restrained himself. He had often appeared only to Sam and accepted without question his account of Dean's whereabouts; why should it be so different in reverse? It was easy to dismiss Uriel sneering _there is only one Winchester that matters_ ; harder to ignore was the memory of his own assertion that this was only a mission, that the Winchesters had been assigned to him. _The Winchesters_ , as a unit. He had never intended to separate them in his mind. He had certainly never intended to favor one over the other. Perhaps he had overstepped his bounds.

Slowly, reluctantly, Castiel moved to stand beside the man he had redeemed.

"Are you on a hunt?" he asked.

A strange smile twisted Dean's lips, and for a moment he didn't answer. Then he leaned forward, kicking out the wooden chair across the table from his. "Pull up a chair," he suggested.

Castiel stared at the wooden seat for a moment before perching uncomfortably on the lip of the seat. Dean dropped his burger onto the foil in front of him, and then grabbed another lump of foil, peeling back the wrapper to reveal a second burger and laying it out before the angel so carelessly that ketchup spurted from the side.

"All right, Cas. You know under normal circumstances I am morally opposed to pouring my money into your bottomless gullet—but on this one, incredibly nauseating occasion, I'm willing to make an exception."

"I do not wish to eat that," Castiel informed him, eyeing the monstrosity. Dean snorted.

"I don't remember asking. Look, I've got an hour to kill, and you, tragically, are all I've got for company. So shut up and put it in your mouth."

He couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, that something dark and unforgivable was hovering in the air around them, tensed to break. Castiel touched the burger with two fingers and then pulled them back, his brow furrowing. "Dean—"

"No way—moochers can't be choosers. Here, there's even a salad for you." He pulled the lid from a plastic bowl, holding it up to show the angel a slightly fresher-looking assortment of tossed greens and chopped vegetables. Dean tipped it back and forth and made the sliced carrots roll. "So you enjoy your fine dining, and I'll catch you up about the sexy L.A. beach. God! Where were you a couple of hours ago, huh?"

 _Where were you?_ Castiel wanted to ask, and perhaps more importantly, where was Sam? As Dean launched into an improbable story about a woman in a bikini and a sand volleyball tournament, Castiel raised the burger to his lips and sank his teeth into the flesh of the bun—then he swallowed, hard, wondering at the strange heaviness of the food sliding down his throat.

.x.

Sam had figured out the fingertips, or the flippers by now. The hand that grabbed him had fine, soft fur on the end of its digits—sea lion fur and skin and flesh, being used as a conduit to suck out her victim's life, and if she killed Sam, which was seeming more and more likely by the second, then after he was dead she would gnaw off his fingertips and wear them as her own.

It was the thought of the little girl the Siren had almost eaten that kept Sam fighting, pushing his head above the water to suck in air before plunging into the fray again. Plus, he was too far to make it back to land without her dead. At least he knew her weakness—unfortunately, he was already running out of strength, fighting the resistance of the water as well as the Siren. It was time for a move of desperation.

Golden eyes locking on his, the creature reached her hands out for his neck, and this time the hunter didn't fight it. He felt the soft digits turn to steel as she squeezed, and almost immediately there was more pain than he could bear. Sam had been choked before, many, many times before—it was like the go-to move for most ghosts—but this was different. It felt like she was leeching the life directly from his body, leaving only a biting cold as every one of his muscles struggled to pull itself into a tiny ball.

Sam almost forgot his plan entirely—but then those cruel eyes were staring directly into his, inches away. He moved at once, seizing the back of the Siren's head and pulling her closer until they were body to body. Then he brought the small knife down with all the force he could muster, yanking her head toward his chest to expose the back of her neck. She shrieked, and Sam could only take a moment to be thankful that this time they were underwater and the saltwater in his ears was muffling the sound.

The yellow eyes disappeared from in front of him, and for one terrifying moment Sam thought that he had missed, failed somehow, and she was escaping. Then he felt the cold weight of the body pressing down on him, trying to sink him like an anchor, unmoving as a stone. Sam kicked and thrashed until the weight fell away, blinking stinging eyes as the Siren's form became nothing more than a shadow in the depths. Then he tried to kick to the surface—except somehow he wasn't moving at all anymore.

He couldn't tell which direction was up, and he had a feeling he was sinking. It was more peaceful than he'd thought it would be. _Dean_ , he thought, willing his arms and legs to move, his aching lungs to hold on. _Dean._ Sam stretched a hand upward, but it didn't reach the surface, only lolled in the water above him as his own weight pulled him down. _Dean_ , he thought again, not entirely sure what he was trying to say this time. _Sorry_ , maybe— _I love you_ ; _I wish things were different_. Then he felt another name on his lips.

Sam hadn't prayed out loud since the day he met the angels. He wasn't sure why, but it seemed wrong somehow, like his prayers were unwelcome, might ruin something that was supposed to be beautiful. What faith Sam had he kept in his heart. But now, at the end, he wanted to call out for somebody who might still be listening. Because things had been so strained with Dean; they couldn't find their footing anymore, just seemed to go round and round, the same tired, angry heartbreak, and Sam wondered if his brother would ever forgive him for not being the same person he was when Dean went to Hell. Sam wanted to reach for somebody who might still be waiting to hear him call.

"Cas," he whispered into the water, letting go of the last of his breath. He stared at his hand, still reaching out for something above him, as the edges of his vision started to go black. And then there was something reaching back—two hands cupping his so gently. Sam wondered if it would turn sour like the memory.

.x.

_Cas._ It was barely a whisper, barely a breath, and somehow it was the loudest prayer Castiel had ever heard, reaching all the way to the human heart beating in his chest and making it race. _Sam_ , the angel thought. It was the only thought—he left Dean in the middle of a word and threw himself into the sky, his wings beating so hard, so desperately that a flash of white light ripped through the air around him, filling the sky above the sea like a flood of lightning. _Cas_ , Sam had prayed, and it didn't sound like _please_ —it sounded liked something else, like _goodbye_.

Castiel hovered in the air above the waves for a tenth of a second, suspended in the glow of his passage, before he pulled his wings in and plummeted into the water. The sea swirled around him, the salt so much sharper on a human tongue, his outstretched hands driving swells through the water. Sam was sinking toward the ocean floor, one hand thrown out above him. For just a moment his eyes seemed to focus on Castiel, looking past his frantic fingers, and he smiled once—a smile Castiel didn't like, because it was too resigned—before his eyes closed and his head slipped backward, his hair in the water a rippling halo. Castiel caught Sam's hand between both of his own before he could slip any farther, and cradled those cold fingers between his palms, pulling Sam's body against his as he scoured the still form for any hint of movement, of warmth. Sam's limbs were boneless, adrift in the black sea.

Castiel didn't remember the thought that had brought them to the shore. The sun was gone, and in its absence the moon was the only light, its silver reflection shimmering on the waves, the surf, the seawater trickling down Sam's face, turning his skin a sickening ivory. Sam was wet, and cold, and impossibly still against the sand, and Castiel had lost one hand in the tangle of his long hair, tipping his head back as he leaned over Sam and tried to listen for a pulse over the cacophony of his own heart frantic in his ears. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Uriel's voice was reminding him that his charge was Dean Winchester, not his brother, not the abomination, the boy with the demon blood. But that wasn't what Castiel saw.

What he saw was Sam peering at him over the rim of a coffee cup, the scent of lemon steam banishing the chill from the air between them. Sam handing him a towel while rain poured outside the rattling windows; the smile he liked, the one he didn't understand yet, as Sam hooked his fork through a piece of waffle and then held it out. Sam who could not match his socks. Sam who sighed as he tucked a blanket over Dean's sleeping form. Sam squeezing his hands in apology— _it's nothing you did, Cas_. Sam looking at him with awe and love when he was told that Castiel was an angel. Castiel wanted to take his hand all over again.

Sam's hand was cold in his, his lips parted and glistening in the white light as the angel bent down, felt static in the air around him as he called on the smallest glimmer of his grace. He pressed his forehead to Sam's, leaving just enough space between their lips—then with all the softness and gentleness he had learned in these last months, the softness of understanding, suddenly, just how breakable a thing he held in his hands, he breathed across Sam's lips, letting his grace flow into him. Fragile human lungs filled with air, and in the space between one heartbeat and the next Sam took a shuddering breath, rolling onto his side and choking out the seawater that had suffocated him. Castiel felt his grace swarming around him, almost singing. He kept a warm hand on Sam's back as he knelt on the shore, holding the young man up and watching his fingers curl into the whitewashed sand.

For a moment, Sam did nothing but cough, and with every seize Castiel felt as if his lungs were seizing, too, his vessel and Sam coming back to life together. At last those soft hazel eyes focused on Castiel, and he struggled up, crawling to his knees to face the angel.

"You saved me, Cas," he breathed.

Sam's balance was barely holding, but he reached out a fumbling hand and Castiel caught it in his own, pulling it as close as the cage of his flesh permitted—and as the hunter met his eyes, a strangely hopeful expression on his face, the angel realized that this was the first time Sam had ever called for him.

"Sam," he said, lacing their fingers together.

Sam's breath caught, and then he let it out slowly, staring at their tangled hands. Castiel wasn't certain what he saw—but he could feel Sam's pulse beating against his palm, soft as breath on his skin, and for a long moment it was the only sound in the world, the flicker of that brittle heart reignited by his grace. Castiel watched Sam's chest rise and fall, the motion soft and soothing as the gentle ebb of the tide, and brought their other hands together, leaving them kneeling palm to palm in the sand.

Sam looked up and caught his gaze, his eyes vivid with the moonlight. "Cas…I just..."

Whatever Sam had meant to say was lost in another fit of coughing, and Castiel's fleeting relief vanished as he realized that the hands in his were still cold. Sam's life was no longer in danger, but his body was shaking, his wet hair dripping down his back, and in the ragged coughs racking his lungs Castiel could already hear the whisper of illness, the damage that cold could do to such delicate beings. In an instant his certainty was gone. Castiel was a soldier of God, a vessel of His righteous wrath, but he knew so little about how to care for humans, even after all this time. He barely knew how to answer a prayer—and yet Sam was squeezing his hands as though he was the answer the human had always been looking for. He wished suddenly, desperately, to be the one to take care of Sam, but he did not know how.

"You are cold," Castiel said, holding tight to the body that felt so tenuous in his hands. "Dean will know what to do."

He did not wait to see Sam's expression before arising and carrying them away from the sea.


	5. Chapter 4

In the five minutes since Cas had disappeared, Dean's initial spike of annoyance had quickly morphed through the five stages of being pissed at your heavenly babysitter: denial, anger, rage, fury, _gonna tear his fucking wings off if he doesn't land in the next ten seconds_. If Dean was honest with himself, there was a little something extra in that last feeling, the one he'd finally settled on—something a little more like anxiety, maybe even worry, because while this sure as hell wasn't the first time that sad sack had poofed out right in the middle of a conversation, this had been different somehow. Instead of Cas's patented _now you see me now you don't_ Vegas showman routine,the angel had been staring Dean right in the face when he suddenly jerked up ramrod straight, his head snapping to the side as though listening to a distant sound. Then he had mouthed something and disappeared with a crack like the whole hotel was about to split in two and come down around Dean's ears.

And really, at the bottom of the bottle of lukewarm Coca-Cola that was all he'd found to chug out of the crappy minifridge, Dean had to admit it was that word Castiel had said that had him twisting himself in knots. It could have been _damn_ , like _damn am I late for my angelic duties!_ Or _man_ , like the big G-Man upstairs with the orders. A slangy _c'mon_ or _'sup_ …Dean's heart flapped in his gut. Or _Sam_. He could have been saying _Sam_.

And wouldn't that just be the cherry on top of the shit sundae that was Dean's night.

Dean jerked up from his chair and kicked one wooden leg, sending the uncomfortable waste of space skittering back under the table. Sometime between ignoring Sam's call and forcing his brother's dinner on the angel that was definitely bigger on the inside—Cas had even eaten Sam's salad in the end—Dean realized his brother should have been back by now. A glance at his watch showed that the time for his date was ticking by right this second; he could probably get away with being a few minutes late, but a few minutes late would have meant leaving already, and he couldn't get that word Castiel hadn't said out of his mind. Dean scrubbed a hand through his hair—then he pulled the neatly folded paper out of his pocket, wadding it with one hand and chucking it into the landfill of foil wrappers and fry baskets filling the mesh trash can.

This fucking panic mode he was in was all Cas's fault—disappearing with some vague word on his lips and no explanation. And so help him if he had missed his hot date because Sam was off sulking somewhere and Cas had just decide to crash the pity party…!

Dean was wearing a hole in the carpet by the time he heard the familiar flutter of wings at his back. He started yelling before he even turned around.

"You goddamn sonofabitch, Cas—do you know what I…" The words died on his lips as he whirled around to see what the angel had dragged in.

"Hey, Dean," Sam said weakly, the words stumbling off into a cough.

His brother looked like roadkill, or better yet the castoff from some fishing dock—he was soaking wet and caked with sand, with long, gnarly-looking scrapes on his hands and neck, and he hung limply from Cas's shoulder like the angel was the only thing holding him up. Something sharp rose up in Dean's chest and hit the back of his throat; it was sour like bile, that particular mix of rage and panic that always flared up whenever anything happened to his brother. For a second he thought it might smother him.

"Sam," he gasped out. "Sammy!"

He raked his eyes up and down Sam's form, searching for other injuries as he took two steps forward and jerked him away from Cas. The bruises around his neck were far too familiar—Dean had seen marks just like that every time some ghost, ghoul, or dissenting third party put their hands around Sam's neck and squeezed real hard. One of his fingers was bleeding, the nail turning purple like something had been shoved up under it. Other than that, Sam seemed okay—which didn't seem like enough to excuse Sam draping himself all over the angel like he had been.

"What the hell happened?!" Dean demanded. He wasn't sure which of them he was addressing, but his hard gaze landed on Castiel, daring those blue eyes to answer the damn questions, for once in his eternal life. The angel had let him pull Sam away, but he'd kept one firm hand on his brother's elbow, which pissed Dean off more than a little, because it just smacked of divine judgment—like Castiel didn't trust him to take care of his own brother.

"He is very cold, Dean," Castiel said, meeting his gaze squarely.

"Well I can fucking tell that much!"

Sam tugged on Dean's shoulder, pulling his attention away from the angel, like he always did when Dean was in the mood to bust heads—Castiel's head, specifically.

"I just…went for a little swim, Dean," Sam wheezed, offering up a wet smile.

Dean felt his eyes widen, and then they narrowed again just as fast, because suddenly he could guess exactly what had happened. "Your fucking case," he said. "Damn it, Sam! Why didn't you…" But then Dean cut himself off, biting down on his tongue until he thought it'd rip in half—because Sam _had_ called, and he hadn't answered. After everything—barely a month after tearing down dirt farm roads in Montana at eighty and listening to Sam's wheezing breaths through the phone, listening to his brother dying on a dying line—he hadn't picked up. Dean couldn't believe how fast they'd ended up here again: missed calls and no messages, and hunting alone. But this time Dean had a feeling he only had himself to blame, and that was a feeling he really, really didn't like.

Sam gave a small shudder, and all at once Dean realized how cold and clammy Sam's skin really was. If this hadn't been his brother—his half-drowned, half-dead brother clinging to him like a second skin—Dean would have shoved him off. Instead he just gripped Sam tighter as he dragged him toward the bathroom. Dean noted with satisfaction that when he pulled Sam away, Castiel dropped his hand.

"You and me, Sam, we're gonna fix it right this time," Dean muttered into his brother's ear—out of earshot, he hoped, because it was none of Cas's damn business. "But for now, just get your ass in the shower."

"Sure, Dean" he thought he heard Sam murmur back.

Sam looked bushed, but he didn't seem to be on the verge of passing out, so Dean felt comfortable leaving him at the door, watching as he leaned heavily against the sink. Sam nodded his thanks.

"I'll be out here," Dean told him, and Sam's eyebrows lifted.

"Dude, you better intend to _stay_ out there," he warned playfully, closing the door. Dean felt the corner of a smile tugging at his lips. Because if Sam was feeling well enough to be a snarky little bitch, then he was going to be fine.

Dean heard the lock click from the other side, and looked up to see Castiel's eyes fixed on the door, narrowed in focus like he was trying to see through it. Dean felt the bizarre need to step in front of the angel's gaze. He settled for cracking his neck from side to side, and when Cas's gaze flickered to him he met it head on, staring right back into those dark eyes. Dean jerked his head toward the door.

"I got this," he said, relieved when Cas took the hint and flapped off.

.x.

Sam lay in the soft hotel room bed, staring at the new paint on the ceiling and listening to Dean's light snores from across the room. The room was unusually silent compared to the dead-end dives where they normally stayed; there was no road noise, no raucous laughter from drunks smashing bottles in the parking lots—just the whisper of the air conditioner in the corner, and somewhere beyond it, the sound of the sea. Sam rested an arm across his forehead, feeling the soft dampness of his hair clinging to his skin.

When all was said and done, Dean had been furious—furious he had taken the case alone, furious that Cas had left to save Sam without him, furious that some _fish-sucking sea monster_ had actually been hanging out at a beach in L.A.—and twice as furious, it seemed, that Sam had already killed it and his anger had no outlet. Sam got the distinct feeling that the next water-related monster they came across was going to get more than its fair share of fury. But for the first time in a long time, all Dean's anger had felt like worry, and hadn't left Sam wishing he could hobble away from the hotel, find a place to curl up alone and then just wait for whatever was coming, recovery or the other thing. Tonight, instead, he'd had to fight to keep himself from cracking a smile as he listened to Dean's tirade and changed into a comfortable pair of sweats before climbing into bed.

"Oh yeah," Dean had said as Sam buried his face in the pillow. "I picked you up dinner—salad and everything. But Cas ate it."

Sam turned over long enough to give his brother a skeptical look. Dean had seemed sincere, but Sam just couldn't picture it. Even if his salad had somehow ended up in Castiel's stomach, he was willing to bet good money that the reason it was there was the incorrigible brother's whose grinning head was hovering over his bed.

"Man, I'm going to sleep." Sam took a swipe at him with his pillow, not surprised or even really disappointed when Dean ducked.

"Yeah, you rest up, princess," Dean suggested. "I'm going out to get some supplies, then I'm calling it a night, too." And Sam hadn't missed it—the unspoken promise in his brother's words that he wasn't going to disappear with someone, not tonight.

That had been hours ago. Sam wasn't sure entirely what had woken him. Not a noise—he was far too used to Dean's snoring by now for that to rouse him. He swept his bangs from his face, sitting up on his elbows and reaching for the glass of water on the nightstand. His fingers had just wrapped around the cool glass when he heard the almost imperceptible flutter of wings, and then felt the undeniable sinking of a weight on the side of his bed.

"Cas…"

It was more of a breath than a word, and Sam set the shaking glass back down before it could slip through his fingers. He tried to steady himself as he turned. Castiel looked as he always did, his black hair slightly windblown and that familiar trench coat falling around him—but for once his startling blue eyes were locked on Sam's, and he wasn't sitting stiffly on the edge of the mattress, instead leaning toward Sam with his hands braced to either side of him, long fingers nestled in the cream sheets. Sam brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes.

Cas had been gone when he got out of the shower. All Dean had said was that the angel had to leave, and Sam carefully hadn't asked whether that had been Dean's choice or Castiel's. Sam remembered thinking a very long time ago that Castiel was very busy, and very easy to bother. He wondered if that was still true, or if he and his brother had grown on Castiel as much as the angel had grown on them. On him.

"Sam." Castiel's voice was low and soft, and Sam glanced over reflexively—but Dean was still fast asleep, two-thirds of his face smothered in the pillow. Castiel shifted and his hand slid along the soft bed, stopping so close there were only inches between his fingers and Sam's where they lay on the coverlet. Such a complicated space.

"Cas…I just…you saved my life. Again."

The breeze fluttered in the curtain, and suddenly the sound of the ocean was so much louder in his ears, so much closer. Their fingers had been laced, connected, intertwined for just a moment on the beach, and Sam had been able to feel Cas's breath in his lungs—and kneeling there in the sand, he had wondered if it would be okay to love an angel. If those feelings could be allowed even from him. Because the phantom warmth of Castiel's fingers on his lingered, pulling him from the depths, and the look in the angel's eyes had made Sam feel like a human again, with a heart and a soul. He believed in love. Because it had gotten all twisted around somewhere, but in the end it was love that saved a person—loving Dean, loving Bobby, loving Jess, loving Madison, loving Mary—no matter the outcome, no matter the pain, loving them saved him.

"Sam, are you all right? Do you…need anything?" Castiel's eyes were earnest as he stared into Sam's, and his fingers were so still, so steady, just inches away, not quite touching his. Sam gave a soft smile.

"Just stay a minute?" he asked, settling back onto the pillow.

Castiel nodded. The bed seemed warmer, his breaths lighter, and at once Sam could feel sleep pulling him back under, gentle as the tide. He let his eyes slip closed, his lips parting slightly.

_Dear God,_ he whispered in his heart, _forgive me for loving one of your angels. Thank you for sending him to save me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only the epilogue to go on this story. Thanks for reading, everyone.


	6. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

The sandcastles were crumbling one by one. Castiel had watched the children building them all morning in the wet sand at the edge of the beach—filling plastic buckets, turning them over with their eyes squeezed shut in hope and anticipation, crowning the round towers with white shells and seagull feathers. But the children were gone now, and the tide was coming in, and like so many things that humans built the castles were disappearing one grain at a time, following each sweeping wave back into the sea. Castiel stepped carefully over the ruins all the same.

The ocean was not new to him. He had watched as the great expanses of water churned into existence, had stood by over the eons it took for the waves crashing against the cliffs to carve out a shore. But this was the first time he'd ever considered it all from a human perspective. The vastness of it struck him as it never had before. Castiel stared out at the water, coiling and uncoiling across the beach in hissing tongues of foam, and wondered what had ever inspired man to set out across it in little ships, to believe there might be something beyond the endless horizon. Perhaps that was another kind of faith.

A burst of laughter loud enough to carry over the waves rose up at his back; Castiel turned far enough to glance over his shoulder, easily picking Dean out of the crowd of young men darting back and forth across the sand volleyball courts, competing for the attention of women in small swimsuits. Dean seemed particularly concerned with that biological imperative. He had made it clear to Castiel, when the angel first appeared in the Winchesters' motel room that morning, taking in at a glance the sea-blue walls and the framed paintings of iridescent jellyfish, that the brothers were not on a case for once, that they had come to the beach to enjoy themselves, and that he wouldn't have a holy babysitter in a bargain-bin trench coat ruining his chances of bagging a beach babe. Castiel only understood perhaps half of Dean Winchester's nonsense in general, but that was still enough to interpret the deluge as a dismissal.

All the same he had chosen to stay, a decision he had contemplated as he'd followed the Winchesters the half block from their hotel to the beach. They were in no danger here, and had no need of him; he had no reason to stay. But as he took his first steps out onto the swell of the beach and felt sand slipping over the lips of his shoes, and caught Sam trying to quash a persistent smile, the angel had decided that in this one instance, perhaps he didn't need a reason.

Castiel considered that for a fleeting moment, watching the volleyball bouncing between sun-browned hands—a life without reason. Then he turned and continued up the beach, heading for a splash of bright blue on the yellow-white shore.

Sam had fallen asleep in the sand. He was stretched out on his back with both arms folded under his head, bare toes dangling past the edge of a hotel towel, his blue plaid shirt riding up his stomach in the inconstant ocean breeze. For his own peace of mind, Castiel let his grace flicker out toward him, seeking the young man's pulse; he relaxed when he felt that reassuring beat reverberating in Sam's chest, lazy and slow under the warm afternoon sun. For a moment Castiel remembered unbidden the last time he'd stood on a beach like this one, the bite of the wind and spray crashing on the rocks, the smell of saltwater mixing with darkness and desperation. Sam's pale, clammy hand gripping his as tightly as their bones allowed. Castiel preferred the way that hand looked now, in the sunshine, tangled through the strands of Sam's windblown hair. A trail of small objects lay beside him, glittering in the sand; Castiel bent to pick one up.

It was a seashell. There were seven shells scattered next to Sam's frayed black backpack, each of them crusted with a thin layer of drying sand—a broken segment of an oyster shell with blue and white splashes of color, a fan-shaped shell perhaps the width of his thumbnail, two sand dollars that were a perfect white except for blotches of saffron red in the centers of their lopsided stars. Castiel turned one of the sand dollars over in his hand. With all of the shells down by the water, he wondered why Sam had chosen these, most of them broken or flawed. But then, sometimes Sam seemed to like imperfect things. Castiel thought he might, too.

"Bobby had this big jar of seashells."

Castiel lowered his hand and turned back to Sam. He hadn't moved at all where he was stretched out in the sand; his eyes were still closed and his voice was thick with warmth and receding dreams. Castiel set the sand dollar gently down.

"Where?" he asked.

Sam's lips quirked up in a little smile. "In his kitchen. This great big jar of shells, all different kinds. I don't know where he got them—actually, probably don't want to know where he got them," Sam amended. His brow furrowed and he wrinkled his nose, tiny twitches of expression shaping his features one after another—Castiel watched them and wondered if this was what Sam looked like when he was dreaming, every flicker of emotion showing on his face. Sam's lips parted in a soft sigh. "Anyway, I thought it was so cool when I was little. I always wanted to make one like that with my own shells, but there wasn't…we never really…"

Sam trailed off, and Castiel watched the lines of his face smooth out once more, the sentences he couldn't finish tucked carefully away inside him, where the sharp edges wouldn't show. Sam breathed in and out once, slowly. Then his smile was back, a little more wistful than before—or perhaps it was sadder. Castiel struggled with the distinction.

"I've never picked up seashells before today," Sam finished, and left it at that.

Castiel considered him for a quiet moment. At last he turned his gaze to the water. "I also have never…collected shells," he said.

Sam cracked one eye open, just enough to squint up at the angel. "Do you want to?" he asked, lifting a hand to shield his face from the sun. Then he laughed a little, almost, the sound barely louder than a breath, and shook his head, the motion scattering grains of sand through his tousled hair. "I mean, it's not like—it's no big thing. They're just shells, and you just sort of walk along by the water…not a transcendental experience or anything. But they're kind of…" Sam's other hand strayed out to touch one of the clam shells, his fingertip tracing the ebbs of the colors, the dark blue spots where the muscle had attached, worn smooth as polished stone. Castiel considered the hundreds of shells he had walked over already, thought nothing of. Then Sam closed the shell in his fist and looked up to meet Castiel's eyes, and the angel tipped his head, dusting his sandy fingers against the rim of his coat.

"I think I would like to try," he said.

Sam had only been awake for a few minutes, and Castiel was not accustomed to being a physical entity. That was the explanation he gave himself as to how he helped Sam to his feet, trailed him down the slope of wet sand and followed him all the way into the first rush of water without ever considering his shoes.

"Oh, my God—Cas, I'm so sorry," Sam said breathlessly, as the surge of brown tide receded and the angel stared down at his soaking leather shoes. Sam raked a flustered hand back through his hair and then grabbed Castiel by the sleeve, pulling him up the beach beyond the reach of the next wave before his coat could get wet, too. "Man, Cas, why didn't you—no, I'm sorry, you didn't know, and I didn't even say anything." Sam glanced down at his drenched feet and a little laugh burst out of him, somewhere between incredulous and sympathetic, and then the young man carved his fingers back through his hair, trying in vain to keep the salt-sprayed, windswept tangle out of his face. "Here, um…" He faltered for a moment as Castiel gripped one pant leg and shook it, a vain attempt to keep the wet cuff from sticking to his ankle. "Just—take your shoes off, okay? And your socks. If you lay them out in the sun, they'll be dry by the time we get back."

Castiel looked up from his shoes to meet his companion's gaze. "Do not be alarmed, Sam," he said. "I can cause them to be dry again. I do not need to take them off."

Sam raised his eyebrows, an incredulous, lopsided little smile quirking the corners of his lips. "Cas, they're… going to get wet every time we hit a wave. Wouldn't it be easier to just go barefoot?"

Castiel looked down at Sam's feet. He studied the holes his long toes had carved into the wet slope of the beach, the curving impression of each crescent footstep down from his towel, the soft dusting of sand sticking to his ankles. Then he looked up again.

"What does that feel like?" he asked.

Sam laughed under his breath. "It feels fantastic, Cas."

Castiel had never untied his shoes before. As individual objects rather than just part of his feet, they were exceptionally strange, fragments of rubber and animal hide held together with pieces of string—so very makeshift, so very human. Castiel laid them out carefully in the sand next to his socks and his trench coat and the black suit jacket underneath. Sam bent and rolled his pants up past his knees, so Castiel did the same. Sam helped him roll up his shirtsleeves, too.

It was a strange feeling, walking along the beach with so much of himself left behind in the sand. Without the layers of clothing, his tie flapping over his white shirt in the wind off the water, Castiel felt closer to the surface of his vessel, as if some aspect of his true self might begin to bleed through the skin. He wondered if humans felt this way all the time: so exposed, so much a part of the world in which they walked.

"Here's one."

Sam dipped his hand into the receding tide and emerged with a sand dollar. This one was entirely a deep, burnt red, and the size of Sam's palm, with the same asymmetrical star at its center. Sam flipped it over and Castiel could see the branching veins running out toward its edges, each tendril outlined in brown so dark it was nearly black. Sam gave a small puff of laughter.

"Should've brought a bucket," he said, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear.

Castiel studied him for a moment in silence. "I have pockets," he offered.

Sam's eyes crinkled when he smiled.

Much farther down the beach, their feet turning red from the cold water and Castiel's pockets half full of seashells and smooth stones, Sam broke off midway through a sentence and jogged down the sand toward the gathering waves, bending to scoop something up just before the water crashed around his ankles. He turned back to Castiel with his hands outstretched. In the palm of the right one rested a half-open mussel shell, its exterior peeling black, its interior a brilliant, pearly blue. Castiel moved down the beach to his side as Sam tilted his hand back and forth, watching the light play over the shell's sapphire hollow.

"Doesn't this one look like a butterfly?" he asked, looking up at the angel. Then his eyes dropped to his hand again, and his mouth twisted up to one side, his brow furrowed in contemplation. "Or, maybe not—I don't know."

Castiel stared at him as the waves rolled around his ankles. "It is a shell," he said.

Sam ducked his head. "Yeah, no—you're right." He shrugged. "Just a shell."

Castiel frowned. He looked at the small curve of Sam's lips, hidden behind the curtain of his ruffled hair; he looked at the shell lying in Sam's palm, the sparkle of its startling blue, the long edges lifted as if poised to arise. He shifted his feet in the sand.

"It is a shell that looks like a butterfly," he revised. Then he watched the young man carefully, so that he wouldn't miss Sam's lips twitching up into a private smile.

Over their heads, the seagulls were crying. Sam watched them weaving in the air and then turned to face the water, and Castiel watched him—motionless, backlit against the waves like crested glass, the sunlight laced over every peak, the sea foam hissing at his toes. Castiel studied his hand holding the butterfly shell and remembered all the times, in the time since they had last been on a beach like this, when Sam had reached that hand out toward him, as if to touch him, or to press their palms together. He always seemed to stop short. Castiel tracked the glitter of reflected sunlight on the underside of Sam's hand and wanted to feel those fingers in between his again. Then Sam turned away from the sun, and Castiel caught his eyes, so green against the colors of the sea.

"How do you know which shells to keep?" the angel asked.

Sam shook his head. "It's not like that, Cas. There's not a rule or anything. You just sort of…whichever ones you like. Whichever ones strike you."

Castiel glanced at his open palm. "And you like that one."

Sam flexed his hand, looking at the shell as if considering it for the first time. "Um…yeah. I guess so."

The sunlight hit the inside of the shell and reflected it back against Sam's face. Castiel watched it shine. "I do as well," he said at last. "You should keep it."

Sam cocked his head. The waves beat against their feet, shells disappearing every time the ocean breathed in and out, and Sam stood quietly among them, his thoughts hidden from Castiel behind those complicated eyes. Then he smiled and stretched out his hand. "No. I think you should have this one."

Castiel watched him silently for a long moment, this human, this infinitely young thing, offering an angel a seashell—an angel who had known oceans and sand before shells existed but was just learning to step over sandcastles, who had driven waves against the rocks at the will of God without a thought for the tiny things crumbling to dust under his hand. Without a thought for the seashells. Then he tipped his head, just a little, and reached out in return.

"Thank you, Sam," he said softly, as he folded both of his hands around Sam's, cupping it gently so as not to break such a fragile thing. "I will keep it, always."

Castiel was a soldier—not a deliverer, not a guiding light. He would always be a soldier. But all the same he wondered if he might be allowed to be a guardian as well, just this once.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to all who read and reviewed. This is the end of "What the Heart Wants," but the next story in the Other Guardian 'verse should be up pretty soon.


End file.
